Fwd: [Fwd: Re: Proposal of @ua]

On Oct 19, 2007, at 8:24 AM, Jens Meiert wrote:

> Sure, but as long as user-agents mean quite “differing” spec  
> implementations, those “hacks” – when really needed – are certainly  
> still more maintainable than having n style sheets polluting the  
> HTML (as with CCs) or having n “@ua” rules. The latter might be  
> slightly better, but it's still about having working, standards  
> compliant implementations, I fear :/

True enough. I agree that HTML is the wrong place to have the  
variations to cover the differing implementations, because it removes  
the advantage of using one style sheet for many pages.

My point is that, given that no browser has ever, or likely will  
ever, support the spec perfectly and entirely or in the same way as  
other interpretations (and I do realize we are trying to be more  
clear with the spec to avoid differing interpretations), there is  
going to be a need to deal with different levels of support in  
various implementations. If there was an official way to do this  
(such as an @ rule), and if new browsers at least supported that,  
then it would be a vast improvement over the tactics we have to use  
today.

I think we are in basic agreement about the ideals, and that @au  
would be an inadequate substitute for more complete implementations  
of existing CSS standards. I would love to see it though, as a step  
towards dealing with the differences.